Empty Lockers
by Gerri
Summary: Empty lockers bear a lot of significance in Adam Banks' life.


_Disclaimer: I don't own The Mighty Ducks. Disney does._

Empty Lockers

The JV locker room was silent.

Then the door swung open, flying forcefully inwards and bouncing off the wall with a loud, rattling bang.

The tall boy who had shoved it open plopped down on the bench, while the rest of the JV team trooped in and followed suit.

"Goldberg, remind me to never play on your team again," he told the boy who sat down next to him.

"Hey, I'd like to see _you_ catch that boy's knucklepuck, Conway!"

"Drives _all_ the goalies nuts," Russ added cheerfully from another part of the locker room.

"Well, Orion split us unevenly," Guy whined. "All _our_ team had was Fulton's shot. You guys' had Luis' speed-"

"Hell of a lot of good _that_ does if he can't stop," Averman interrupted.

"Yeah, well, speed is better than a goalie who doesn't practise."

Goldberg cleared his throat loudly.

"Anyway, like I was saying, the other team got Luis and Julie and Adam."

From the far corner of the room, Adam raised an eyebrow.

"What do I have to do with it?" he asked.

"Oh, come on, Banks," Averman answered, his back towards him as he bent over his bag, pulling out his clothes. "You know that you're good. That's why Orion put you on Varsity in the first place."

At the mention of the Varsity team, he looked down, shifted his weight to the other foot and reached a hand up to the back of his head.

"Yeah…um…right," he mumbled.

"Hey! Anyone wanna go catch a movie after this?" Luis yelled from the showers.

A chorus of 'yeah's and 'sure's replied.

While everyone else argued over what they were going to watch, Adam changed out of his sweat-soaked attire and into a fresh set of clothes.

The lockers were arranged in numerical order of their jerseys; that meant that his locker was right at the end of the room, in a corner. Personally, he liked that; it was like that corner of the room was unofficially his. He liked the isolation that that little corner could provide.

This was his first JV practice after quitting the Varsity team.

Locker "No. 99, Adam Banks" was still empty.

He paused, the empty locker making him think.

***

_An eight-year-old boy stood, staring into an empty locker, oblivious to the noise around him._

_The only thing in it was a black jersey, hanging there, staring back at him._

_"Banks", in large white letters, and a blue number 9, outlined in white, echoed the new nameplate at the top of the locker: "No. 9, Adam Banks"._

_"Hey."_

_His head whipped around to the side at the sound of the small voice. A blond boy, slightly shorter than him, already dressed in his own black jersey, was standing next to him._

_"You must be the new player," he grinned. He looked at the jersey hanging in the locker. "'Banks', huh? You're Andrew Banks' little brother?"  
Adam nodded._

_"Your brother was a great player."_

_Adam smiled briefly._

_"You're a quiet one, aren't you?" the boy smiled._

_Adam returned the smile, feeling sheepish. He hadn't meant to be antisocial._

_"I'm James Larson." The boy extended his hand._

_"Adam Banks." Adam accepted the handshake._

_"Well, get changed. We need to get out on the ice soon; Coach Reilly likes punctuality."_

***

Now that he thought about it, Larson was the only one who'd come up to him personally to welcome him to the team.

Everyone else had simply known him as "Andrew's little brother".

Adam told himself that it was to be expected.

After all, he'd grown up watching Andrew play for the Hawks. His fellow Hawk team-mates had probably done the same.

Andrew was six years Adam's senior.

And Andrew was his brother, stand-in parent, mentor, confidante…everything rolled into one. 

Andrew was the one who'd taught him how to play hockey.

He vaguely remembered a cold evening when Andrew pressed a hockey stick into hand, and his hand being too small to go around the stick. Andrew had wrapped his own, much larger hand around his, and helped him shoot a puck into the net.

Andrew had been their father's pride and joy. Their father had a tendency to ignore Adam if Andrew was in the room.

But just because their father had favoured Andrew over him, it didn't mean that Adam had hated him.

The way that Adam had seen it, Andrew couldn't help being the centre of attention. Andrew had intelligence, talent, leadership abilities and the capability to do almost anything. His older brother never really sought attention; it was more like a by-product that he received in day-to-day living.

Adam had never had attention heaped on him like that, until the year when he had been ten, and Andrew, sixteen.

Andrew had decided that hockey wasn't what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. He'd refused to join the pros, no matter how much hell their father had given him about it.

Then their father had…sort of, given up on Andrew, transferring all his interests to Adam, effectively stifling him under the sudden, large amount of attention that he was being given.

Adam had the same talent that his brother had. Talent and skill should have been enough to keep him on the all-famous Hawks.

But it wasn't his fault that Life had a cruel way of twisting the rules.

***

_There was a knock on the open door of his room._

_Adam looked up from where he was sitting on the end of his bed, and saw Andrew invite himself in._

_"What happened?" was the first thing that Andrew said._

_"Nothing," Adam replied, giving his brother a blank, confused look._

_"Could've fooled me. Dad's hopping mad downstairs."_

_Silence._

_"All right, Adam, come on. I talked to Dad; I know the district lines got redrawn."_

_"Then why'd you ask?"_

_"I wanted you to tell me yourself. So, what're you gonna do?"_

_"I don't know."_

_"Dad says that you can go live with Uncle James; he's still living in the Hawks' district. He's willing to do anything to let you go on playing with the Hawks."_

_Adam remained quiet._

_"Talk to me, Adam."_

_"D'you think Dad would allow me to play for the Ducks?"_

_"I have a feeling that he doesn't really like the idea."_

_"Why's he so insistent that I play for the Hawks?"_

_"Just wants the best for you, I guess."_

_"Dad wouldn't fuss so much if you hadn't given up hockey."_

_Andrew sighed._

_"Adam, look-"_

_"Why'd you quit, anyway? Now it's like he's got my entire life planned out for me, and it ends up with me playing for the pros."_

_Andrew understood; where their father had previously pretty much never minded whatever Adam did, suddenly his every move came under the man's scrutiny, and it unnerved the ten-year-old._

_"I know. He did that with me too. Maybe Dad's trying to make us live a dream of his that he never got to fulfil. We've had this conversation, Adam, about why I quit hockey. I didn't want to live Dad's dreams; I wanted my own. I just realised that hockey wasn't all there was to life. I realised that there were other things that I wanted to do with my life. That was all."_

_Silence filled the room for a few minutes._

_"I think I'll join the Ducks."_

_"Made up your mind so quickly?"_

_"I think I just realised that the Hawks isn't all there is to hockey." Adam gave a small smile._

_Andrew returned the smile with an arm around his younger brother's shoulders._

_"I'll always be right here where you need me, okay, little bro? Hawks or no Hawks."_

_Larson came up to him before their next practice._

_"Heard that you're leaving for the Ducks."_

_"Yeah. I just want to play hockey."_

_"The other guys aren't too happy about you leaving."_

_Adam looked up and caught Ryan McGill glaring at him. Not for the first time that morning._

_"Yeah, I noticed. I'm actually leaving now. Ducks start their game in half an hour."_

_James smiled wryly as they shook hands._

_"I'll see you around on the ice," he said, and paused, still grasping Adam's hand. "We're still friends, right?"_

_Adam allowed himself the first smile all that morning._

_"Yeah, we are," he replied._

_James smiled back as the locker room started to empty, the other Hawks filtering out onto the ice for practice._

_"I've gotta go now; Coach Reilly-"_

_"Likes punctuality," Adam finished for him. "I'll see you around."_

_Another small sad smile was exchanged, and Larson exited the room._

_Leaving Adam alone, staring at the locker that he'd just cleared. His Hawks jersey was the last thing that he packed into his bag._

_"No. 9, Adam Banks"._

_It was empty again._

***

It made sense, really.

Larson was the only one to actually welcome him to the team, and he was the only one who'd said goodbye.

***

_He slung his bag over his shoulder and walked slowly through the stands, watching as the rest of the Hawks skated laps._

_Coach Reilly stood in the centre of the rink, arms folded, his gaze flitting from one team member to another._

_He glanced up, saw Adam, and then turned his attention back to his team._

_Suddenly, the arena doors were before him._

_One more step, a push to those doors, and he would cease to be a Hawk._

_The sound of skates slicing across the ice rang in his ears as the Hawks continued to skate._

_The arena doors made no sound as they swung shut behind him._

_Mutely, he made his way to the car waiting for him; Andrew had offered to drive him to the Ducks' game._

_His older brother said nothing during the ten-minute drive, and Adam as grateful was that._

_"Pick you up after the game," Andrew called after him as he slid out of the car._

_Scanning the almost full arena, he spotted his new coach discussing something with the referee._

_He approached from behind and meekly made his presence known._

_"Um…'scuse me, Coach…"_

_The man turned around, saw him, and smiled._

**_'"Anyone who had you on their team would be smiling."'_**_ He remembered James telling him that._

**_'"You're an asset to any team,"'_**_ Coach Reilly had told him once._

_Adam dropped his gaze. There was a small nick in his hockey stick which he'd never noticed before._

_"Well, the Ducks locker room is over there," he pointed, "so why don't you go get changed? I'll catch up with you; got some administrative matters to get through here."_

_Adam nodded and walked towards the room that the man had indicated._

_He heard rowdy banter issuing from behind the closed door._

_He pushed open the front door, stepped in, and by the time the door fell shut, all the noise had dissipated._

_Then their coach entered behind him._

_"Ducks, this is Adam Banks. Our new player."_

**_'You must be the new player,'_**_ James had said to him two years ago._

_One boy stood and walked towards him, hand outstretched._

_"On behalf of the Ducks-"_

**_'I'm James Larson.' The boy extended his hand._**

_A dark-skinned boy rose and cut the first boy's welcome short._

_"Putting on a Duck jersey doesn't make you a Duck," the second boy said._

_And then they all filed past him, expressing their opinions of him by means of the daggers in their eyes._

_"They're great once you get to know them," his new coach had reassured._

_"I'll bet," he replied._

_And then he was alone in the room._

_The other lockers were filled with the other players' stuff. He found his __new jersey__ hanging, waiting for him in one of the empty lockers._

_Lockers always started out empty._

***

He hadn't seen an empty locker for years after that.

Well, maybe once, at the Junior Goodwill Games, when they first stepped into their locker room, but that was different.

Somehow, that empty locker hadn't felt as…hollow as the first few had.

The empty locker in the JV locker room at Eden Hall hadn't felt like those first few either.

At least, not until he'd had to clear it out.

***

_"I made Varsity?"_

_He felt numb as he walked away from the board where their positions were posted._

_"Varsity?" Charlie asked him quietly as he sat down next to him._

_"Yeah," Adam answered, sounding distant._

_"Congratulations."_

_Adam stared at him._

_"You deserve it," Charlie went on to say. "You're better than any of us, after all. I wish you weren't leaving, but, well…"_

_The rest of what Charlie was saying didn't register in his mind._

_Varsity didn't like freshmen, and vice versa._

_Caught in the crossfire, again._

_Déjà vu seemed to take place very often in his life._

_Varsity, freshmen…Hawks and Ducks…_

_Empty lockers._

_James Larson had been the only one to welcome him and say goodbye to him._

_Charlie was the same. Just like James._

_The only one who'd bothered to say hello, and the only one who cared to say goodbye._

_Coach Orion poked his head into the sullen-faced locker room a while later._

_"Banks, see me outside after you've changed."_

_He could feel everyone else's eyes on him when he left the locker room._

_Coach Orion was seated in the stands, clipboard on his knees, one hand drumming his fingers against his chin as he stared at the ice thoughtfully._

_He made his way over to where the man was sitting._

_"You wanted to see me, Coach?"_

_"Yes. You need to clear out your locker; Varsity has practice tomorrow and __Wilson__ wants any new players to move into their locker room then."_

_"Oh. Okay." He lowered his gaze to the floor._

_"Banks?"_

_He looked up._

_"You don't seem very happy about making Varsity."_

_"Coach, what if I don't want to go on to Varsity?"_

_"Why not?"_

_"I've been with this team for four years, Coach."_

_Orion paused to think before he spoke._

_"If you're talking about leaving your friends…in life, sacrifices have to be made, Banks."_

_"It's not just about leaving my friends; it's about giving up on four years of work. If you were me, and you knew how long I've been trying to fit in, to belong, you wouldn't be happy about being moved to Varsity either."_

_"What do you mean?"_

_"Look, Charlie has a point, Coach. You **are** the rookie here. If you'd been with us since peewees, like Coach Bombay, you'd know."_

_Orion simply continued to gaze steadily at him._

_He turned and left._

_The locker room was now empty, except for Charlie._

_"The others left; had homework to do," Charlie explained._

_"And **you** don't?" Adam laughed._

_"Nah, I just don't care as much," Charlie grinned. "And anyway, I was waiting around for you."_

_"Thanks, then."_

_Upon reaching his locker, he pulled his bag out and began packing everything into it._

_"You're leaving **now**?" Charlie sounded shocked._

_"Orion said that I have to clear out my locker. I'm moving to Varsity tomorrow."_

_"Oh." There was no emotion in Charlie's voice. It simply sounded empty. The neutral, meaningless word only served to fill the gap when his friend didn't know what to say._

_He reached up to take his Ducks jersey out of the locker. He fingered the sleeves, staring at the logo in the centre of the white shirt._

_"Charlie? Are we still friends?"_

_"Well, yeah." Charlie had a "duh" tone to his voice._

_He let the jersey fall into his open bag._

_"You're sure?"_

_"Yeah, of course. Why're you asking?"_

_"Just wanted to know." He hefted the bag onto his shoulder. "Let's go."_

_Charlie walked on ahead, while Adam paused to close the empty locker._

***

Maybe Charlie had forgotten what he'd said.

Maybe it was partly his fault.

Maybe he'd spent so much time with Varsity that the Ducks had thought that he didn't care for them anymore.

But he did…his problem was just that he wasn't very good at showing emotion, and he hated himself for it.

He hated himself for not being able to connect with people.

He was close friends with Charlie, but Charlie was the one who did more of the stuff that good friends were supposed to do.

Charlie listened, Charlie comforted, Charlie joked…Charlie was just always there.

And he could never do any of those things; even if he tried, he never did it very well. And sometimes, he just hated Charlie for making him feel so useless.

It was easy to assume that just because he spent so much time with Varsity, he liked being on their team.

Most assumptions turn out to be wrong though.

***

_"Coach Wilson?"_

_The man turned around to stare at the person who'd called him._

_"Oh, you," he said. "The new player."_

**_'"You must be the new player."'_**

**_'"Ducks…our new player.'_**

_"Yes sir. That's me," Adam replied._

_Funny how he was always the new player._

_"The boys are practising right now," __Wilson__ jerked his thumb flippantly at the rink, "but they'll be done soon. I'll introduce you to them on their next practice. For now, get your stuff into the locker room. That way," he pointed. "_

_He turned in that direction, watching the rink as he proceeded slowly towards the locker room. A few of the Varsity players looked up and saw him; their looks turned into glares. Then the goalie spotted him._

_The large right glove rose, and tipped off in Adam's direction; a small salute, as if to say, "Welcome to the team"._

_Adam's slow, dragging steps ceased._

_He returned the goalie's salute with a tentative wave._

_He received a nod in return._

_Then he resumed his journey towards the locker room. True, he was always the new player, but at least God was merciful enough to always let there be just one player on the new team who accepted him from day one._

_He located his new locker easily enough; it was the empty one._

_By the time Varsity jostled their way into the room, he'd just finished arranging the stuff in his locker._

_Locker "No 99, Adam Banks" wasn't empty anymore._

_But a different kind of emptiness seemed to be screaming at him from the depths of the filled locker._

_The emptiness in him that tasted familiarly of loss._

_When he'd left the Hawks, some of those that he'd been close to had continued to hang out with him for some time. Then they drifted away. For a while, he'd been alone, no Hawks, no Ducks, no one to call a friend, until the Ducks started to warm up to him._

_He should have asked Orion to let him stay._

_Now the Ducks would drift away from him too._

_He didn't know how long he stood there, staring at the contents of his locker, the pit in the bottom of his stomach growing as he envisioned how lonely the remainder of his days at Eden Hall Academy would be._

_"Adam Banks, right?"_

_The voice on his right made him start and jump away in surprise._

_"Whoa, sorry, didn't mean to scare you," the brown-haired boy said, grinning sheepishly._

_"No…it's not your fault, I was just thinking." Then he noticed that the two of them were the only ones left in the locker room._

_"Just thought that I'd come see you in person. I'm the goalie."_

_Oh. The goalie. The one nice player on the team this time._

_That little salute on the ice._

_Like Charlie's outstretched hand._

_Like James standing beside him in the Hawks' locker room._

_"Oh," Adam replied, unsure of what else to say._

_"Everyone calls me Scooter," the goalie continued cheerfully, as if he didn't notice the awkwardness that Adam felt. "You can do the same."_

_"Thanks."_

_Scooter's head inclined politely to the side._

_"You don't talk much, huh?" he asked._

_"Not really," Adam admitted._

_"I didn't either when I first joined Varsity. But…I guess you get used to these guys after a while." Scooter paused. "Must've been hard for you to leave your old team, huh?" he spoke again, in a softer voice. "I mean, you've all been together ever since the peewees…" he trailed off._

_"I'm sorry," Scooter finished somewhat lamely._

_Adam trained his gaze on his locker, but he heard every one of Scooter's words. He knew how Scooter felt. Trying to offer comfort, but not knowing exactly what to say._

_And when the useless words tumbled out of the mouth, rolling off that loose tongue, all of a sudden, they only seemed to rub salt in the wound instead of helping to heal it._

_"Don't be," Adam said softly, closing his new locker. "I never really fit in, anyway."_

_He walked out of the locker room, feeling Scooter's confused stare on his back._

***

It was true.

He was aware that the collective term, "Ducks", included him, but at the same time, he didn't quite fit.

He had no close connection with a certain group of people which made him feel like he really belonged on the team. Everyone had their own little cliques. Sometimes, one or two cliques were connected by a certain member that they had in common.

More often than not, that common member was Charlie.

That was what made him their captain, after all, their leader. He was the one that held all of them together, the one that joined all the little groups into one team.

Adam had been close to Charlie, but he had no group to belong to. If Charlie was absent, then Adam had no way to connect with the Ducks in general. Adam had been close to Jesse too, the latter's sharp tongue and wit, and blatantly frank attitude making him someone of a likable and laidback personality, but it was the same thing with him as it was with Charlie.

Without either of them, Adam had left to skirt the perimeter around the Ducks.

No way in.

When they were accepted to Eden Hall, Jesse didn't come along.

Charlie had been the only connection that he had left with the Ducks.

After the pranks though, Charlie hadn't wanted anything to do with him anymore.

***

_He sat down heavily on the end of his bed, yanking at his tie, loosening it roughly. Off came his jacket, which was flung into a corner of the room._

_He looked up. Two framed jerseys were on the wall opposite his bed. One black, the other, green._

_Staring at them now, he wondered why on earth he'd framed the black one._

_Then again, he **had** won two championships with the Hawks while wearing that jersey; maybe it was only right that it got its own fair share of the limelight too. His red, white and blue Team __USA__ jersey was framed and hung on the wall beside the door. The white jersey that they'd played their last game in was somewhere in his closet._

_Somehow, it didn't seem like he deserved to wear that jersey anymore._

_Someone passed by his open room door, stopped, backtracked and looked in._

_"Adam?" Andrew's voice sounded surprised as he walked in and sat down next to his brother. "I thought you were sleeping at the school dorms?"_

_"Didn't feel like it tonight."_

_"Something wrong?"_

_"Varsity pranks. They told the Ducks that they were treating them to dinner tonight, and then Riley made us leave. We left the Ducks to foot the bill." He paused. "Andrew, look, I don't want to sleep in the Varsity dorms; I don't want to be Varsity."_

_Adam pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes, trying to find some physical way to stop the tears that were coming._

_He felt arms encircle him, his brother pulling him into a comforting embrace._

_He gave up trying to dam his tears and let his arms go around Andrew's neck._

_"It's his fault," Andrew heard his younger brother mumble. "All his fault…"_

_"Who? Orion?"_

_"No, **him**!"_

_He pointed at the opposite wall, and he felt Andrew's head turn to look._

_"Adam, those are your old jerseys."_

_"His fault," Adam continued to insist._

_"They're **your** jerseys."_

_"**I hate him!** After I became him, I didn't know how to be anyone else!! It's **his** fault that I can never have a stable group of friends; it's **his** fault that I don't **have** any friends! I don't even get to **keep** the friends that I **have**!!"_

_"Shh…calm down…" Andrew tried to calm the distraught fourteen-year-old, rubbing his back as he hugged him tightly._

_He allowed his gaze to wander back to the wall._

_His brother was right, in a way._

_Perhaps now, Adam would fully understand why he had quit hockey._

***

Andrew had always been there to pick up the pieces, and Adam was grateful for that.

He just hoped that the day wouldn't come when there wasn't enough of him to put back together.

He recalled the shouting match that had taken place once he'd calmed down enough.

Andrew had tried to convince him to return to the school.

He'd gotten furious; furious that Andrew didn't seem to understand that he hated that school, hated the team that he was on, hated himself for not being able to save his friends the humiliation. He'd screamed at his older brother; he'd heard words that he'd never used before come out of his mouth that night.

But Andrew had still won in the end. _'You don't run away from your problems,'_ he'd said. _'You run away, they win.'_

Five minutes later, he'd found himself on the road back to school.

And boy, did he find a sight when he entered the hallway which the Varsity dorms shared.

***

_All the doors were open; no one was around._

_Except for Cole, roped up and writhing around on the floor._

_And somehow, he'd recognised it as Dwayne's handiwork too._

_"Untie me, you idiot!" he was yelling._

_Adam scowled._

'Look who's talking,'_ he thought._

_He'd been about to untie him, when Scooter stepped in._

_He was soaked._

_"What'd you do, go swimming with your clothes on?" Adam asked as he stood up and ignored the squirming form of Cole._

_"No, I took a shower with my clothes on," Scooter replied. Then he paused. "Adam, where were you just now?"_

_"At home."_

_"You picked a bad time to come back." Scooter sounded anxious. "Riley's gonna think that you-"_

_"Banks," Riley's voice cut him off, "Nice to see that you decided to come back."_

_Riley had rounded the corner with the rest of the Varsity team in tow, all of them dripping wet._

_"Your little Duck friends told you about this, didn't they? They told you that they were going to do this, didn't they?" he shouted, voice rising with every word._

_"I don't know-"_

_"Oh, right, and it's **such a coincidence** that you're not around when they pull that little stunt." He began to advance towards Adam. "They warned you, **didn't** they? That's why you weren't here just now!!"_

_"I didn't-" Adam backed up._

_"Yeah, well, now we'll give you a taste of what I do to weasels like you-"_

_"I didn't!"_

_"-better figure out which side you're on, Ducky-boy, 'cause if-"_

_"Break it up, Riley." Scooter suddenly stepped between them, his back towards Adam._

_"What're you, his mother? Wimp can't stand up for himself?"_

_"Break it up," Scooter repeated, his voice calm, but firm. "You know the penalty for fighting on school grounds."_

_"So he fell down and got a few bruises. Who's gonna know?" Riley smirked._

_"I'll tell. Even if the rest of the team don't have the guts to say anything, I will. And even if your old man's on the school board, that isn't gonna do squat for you."_

_Riley glared._

_Scooter returned his gaze calmly._

_"Get changed, Banks," Riley suddenly said, without breaking eye contact with Scooter. "We've got a game to practise for."_

_Then he stormed off, followed by the other Varsity players, including Cole, who'd been untied by another team-mate during the verbal tirade._

_"Practice?" Adam stared at Scooter incredulously. "It's three in the morning!"_

_"We have a game against JV at dawn."_

_"I don't remember-"_

_"Not official. It's personal. Got arranged while you weren't around."_

_Silence._

_"What happened while I wasn't here?"_

_"JV got us back for the dinner prank." Scooter shrugged. "I guess it was only fair. Anytime you pull a prank, you've gotta expect that there'll be payback. Riley should've seen it coming."_

_"What did they do?"_

_"Set ants on us while we were asleep. I'd tell them that it was a creative idea, if only I weren't the one on the receiving end," Scooter chuckled. "Labine was saying in the showers that he was damn sure that some had gone up his butt."_

_"And I wasn't around when they pulled it off. So Riley thinks that they informed me and I bailed on you."_

_"Basically, that's what he thinks, yeah." Scooter watched his face closely. "You're sure you wanna play this game?"_

_"Does it look like Riley gave me a choice?"_

***

_"They didn't tell me till it was too late. Charlie, you've gotta believe me."_

_He didn't know why he was explaining himself. It didn't really matter, after all. It wasn't going to bring his friends back._

_"Yeah, right, preppy."_

_It was an excuse. That was it. A lousy, worthless excuse to himself as to why he hadn't been able to do something._

_Charlie's comeback stung. But of course, it should. He'd been expecting it._

_Then why had some other part of him been hoping desperately that Charlie would say that he was forgiven?_

_He skated to the box that Varsity had claimed for themselves, and climbed in, sinking down in the corner, right next to the partition that separated the two player benches._

_He didn't hear the game start._

**_'"Charlie? Are we still friends?"_**

**_"Well, yeah."'_**

_He heard the slap of a hockey stick hitting the puck._

**_'"On behalf of the Ducks…"'_**

_He heard an uproar of cheers._

**_'"Putting on a Duck jersey doesn't make you a Duck."'_**

_Skates sliced across the ice._

**_'"…our new player. Adam Banks."'_**

_He looked up._

_Plumes of ice flakes rose and settled as blades shaved them off the ice._

_He glanced over at the JV box._

_That white jersey looked familiar._

_Had he worn it at some point in time?_

_No. That couldn't be._

_He didn't belong. He was the new player. The rookie. The unknown one. The outcast._

**_'"I never really fit in, anyway."'_**

_"**Banks!!**" a loud yell made him flinch and turn._

_Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that the members of the JV team who were in the box had turned to stare at him as well._

_"Don't just sit there and warm the bench, twerp!" Labine railed at him. "Get out there and play!"_

**_'"I just want to play hockey."'_**

**_'"I just realised that the Hawks isn't all there is to hockey."'_**

_The Hawks were just a team, after all. He could play with or without them. So why weren't the Ducks "just a team"?_

**_'"I just want to play hockey."'_**

_Maybe it was because the Ducks were so different from the Hawks. Maybe it was because they never saw him as 'Andrew's little brother'. Maybe it was because they had known him for simply being the person that he was. Maybe it was because the Ducks cared about each other more than the Hawks did._

_Ducks flew together, after all. Hawks were birds of prey. You didn't display your weaknesses before birds of prey._

**_'"I just want to play-"'_**

_No. he didn't want to play anymore._

**_'"I just want to play-"'_**

_Not if it cost him the friendships and relationships that he'd taken so long to build. Not if playing made his father think of him as an investment instead of a son. Not if it made his life an eternal cycle of difficult situations. Not if it made his life his personal hell._

**_'"I just want to-"'_**

_Stop. He wanted it to stop._

_Now he understood._

_Andrew hadn't had an epiphany about life being more than hockey. Andrew had wanted it to stop. Andrew had simply realised what kind of life he wanted. He'd wanted a life where he wouldn't constantly be forced to choose between their father's wishes and his own desires._

_And in the better life that he wanted, there had been no place for hockey._

_Then someone seized him by the front of his jersey, hauling him bodily up and out of his seat._

_Labine was holding him up against the wall._

_"Play, Banks. Or else," Labine hissed._

_"Or else what?" he asked tiredly. He didn't really care what happened to him. If Labine punched his lights out, so much the better. At least he wouldn't have to play._

_"Don't get smart with me. Now get out there!"_

_Someone unlatched the door and Labine shoved him out and onto the rink._

_His eyes scanned over the players in both benches._

_Labine glared at him._

_He saw Julie watching him, concern- or was it sympathy? pity? – in her eyes._

_Something was wrong._

_Which team was he playing for?_

_He looked down._

_He was wearing a dark jersey._

_Oh. Varsity._

**_'"I don't want to _****be_ Varsity."'_**

_He didn't want to be here._

_He didn't want to be him._

_He wanted it to stop._

_The cold wafted off the ice and up and around him._

'One more game,' _it whispered._ 'Just one last game. You can stop then. You don't have to play anymore.'

'No. I want it to stop _now_-'

_Someone skated past him._

_Without thinking, he checked the person and skated off with the puck._

_Ten seconds later, he realised that that person had been Averman._

_He seemed to be on automatic pilot; something had taken over, while Adam Banks just curled up in a corner of his mind, waiting for this last game to end._

_Funny how the ice seemed to bring out the cold brutality of everyone that played on it._

_"Yeah, get him, Banks!!"_

'What the-'

_It was like waking from sleep…with no memory of time having passed, and no memory of any dreams either._

_And then he saw the player skating alongside him, clad in a white jersey, the number 96 adorning the sleeve._

'Charlie?'

_Their hockey sticks were locked in a battle for the small black disc as they sailed down the ice towards the Varsity net._

**_'"Are we still friends?"'_**

**_"Well, yeah."'_**

'Liar. You lied, Charlie.'

_"Damn it, Banks-" he heard Charlie curse before he felt himself being grabbed around the neck and being pulled down towards the ice._

_They hit the freezing surface and went sliding into the Varsity net, and Scooter, who was guarding it._

_A fight ensued, but he couldn't feel anything through the pads that he was wearing._

_He really didn't know whose fault it was that his ex-team-mates were all drifting away from him._

_Maybe it was Orion's fault for transferring him._

_Maybe it was Charlie's fault for being so **bull-headedly** loyal. To the Ducks, that is._

_Or maybe it was his fault for being too good at hockey._

_Maybe the whole world just had something against him._

_And as he stood, half-freezing, under the cold water in the shower, we wondered why he even cared._

_It wasn't going to help anything, anyway._

***

Coach Bombay had been the one to inform him of Hans' funeral. He didn't think that he'd ever have found out otherwise; after all, he wasn't on speaking terms with the Ducks anymore.

Ducks fly together after all.

If he wasn't a Duck, then he couldn't be a part of the flock, could he?

***

_During the service, he stood near the Ducks, but still somewhat isolated, on his own._

_Looking around at his ex-team-mates, he spotted Charlie; he'd heard about Charlie's expulsion from the JV team days before. Apparently, it had happened after their unofficial game._

'Does that mean that you're not a Duck anymore, Charlie?'

_Charlie looked so angry, and was even more so when Coach Bombay showed up._

_Charlie stalked off then and Adam watched as he left the sombre little gathering._

'I wonder if you know now what it's like to be left alone.'

_People milled around after the service , some left, some stayed to cry and exchange hugs and words of comfort which never seemed to do much._

_Adam did none of these; he just stood and stared at the highly-polished surface of the coffin._

'The team that you took so long and worked so hard to bring together is falling apart, Hans. Do you know that?

'Isn't there some way to save it?'  
_Of course, there was no answer._

_ But there was a tap on his shoulder._

_He turned and saw Julie._

_"Hey, Adam."_

_"Oh." Then, remembering his manners, he added, "Hi."_

_"Haven't seen you around much. How's life with Varsity?"_

_"All right, I guess." An automatic and rehearsed response._

_"You're sure?"_

_"I guess."_

_"We **are** still your friends, you know." She paused. "You know that, right?"_

_Silence._

_"I don't know," he answered._

_Silence again._

_"I guess we haven't really been fair to you about the whole Varsity thing."_

'You haven't. But…I don't know…does it really matter to you anyway?'

_"It's just that…somewhere along the way we divided into separate camps and you got caught in the crossfire-"_

'Yeah. Something like that.'

_"-you know, being posted to one side, but your loyalties were with the other side-"_

'Does loyalty count for much?'

_"If it means anything to you, I don't think you were in on the dinner prank. Although it's hardly what I'd call an innocent prank."_

_"Thanks," he finally said._

_"You're welcome." Pause. "Listen…d'you wanna play a game tomorrow? Not like that stupid game with Varsity the last time, but just schoolyard puck. I'll try to get the others to show up; I think we need to get our act together."_

_"You mean we need to think of each other as friends and not business associates."_

_She stared at him._

_"Um…well, yeah, something like that." Pause. "So, are you coming?"_

_He glanced at the coffin._

**_'The team…falling apart, Hans._**

**_Isn't there some way to save it?'_**

_There **was** a way._

_"Yeah. I'll come."_

***

Julie's idea had helped.

For the first time in a long time, he'd been happy too. And for the first time in a long time, he had been sure that the Ducks were his friends.

But more importantly, he'd been put back on the JV team after that, on the same day that their scholarships had been reinstated.

When Varsity had left them that day, outside the school boardroom, Adam had spotted the small smile that Scooter had sent his way.

To others, it would have appeared to be an arrogant smirk, but he alone knew better.

Scooter was a friend too. That much was definite.

At least he was happy for him, knowing that Adam would be with the people and the team that he was familiar with and whom he considered friends.

So…here he was, in the JV locker room, staring into his as yet empty locker, thinking about…far too much, really.

Truth be told, he couldn't remember _exactly_ what he'd been thinking about, but it hadn't been any one specific thing, that was for sure.

_'Geez, Adam, your mind really **did** wander back there. Now you've gone and lost it.'_

"Um, are you busy?"

Startled, his gaze snapped away from his locker and to his right, where the voice had come from.

Charlie.

"No. but we're going for a movie with the others, aren't we?"

"Yeah, well…they went to the cafeteria for a bite first. Julie got them out of the way. I just wanted to talk to you."

Adam watched him expectantly. Charlie looked down and scuffed the toe of his sneaker against the floor.

"Well, uh…talk then," Adam encouraged.

"Oh." Charlie looked up. "Well, I just wanted to say that…I'm sorry for…" here he broke off and gestured emphatically in Adam's direction. "You know…" he said vaguely.

"No, I don't."

"Oh, hell," Charlie cursed. "I mean…I'm sorry for treating you the way that I did." He sighed loudly, as if relieved to have finally got it off his chest.

"It's all right," Adam replied. "You had the rest of the team to look out for, anyway."

"I don't understand what you mean."

"You had to stand up to Varsity," Adam shrugged. "You couldn't let them walk all over you and take everything that they threw at you lying down just because I was there."

Charlie shifted his weight to the other foot.

"It's all right. Honestly, Charlie. You cared about the interests of the majority."

"You say it as if what we did to you was the right thing to do."

"I don't know about it being the right or wrong thing, but you took care of the rest of the team."

Charlie took a deep breath, and exhaled.

"Look, just…just listen to me, okay? I really need to say this and get it over with. My point is, I think we were really unfair to you, me especially. We didn't make an effort to understand your situation and…well…I guess we- I- was too quick to judge."

Something healed deep inside of him. Some wound that he hadn't known was there had suddenly closed.

"I'm sorry." Charlie paused. "No hard feelings?" he extended his hand towards Adam.

Pause.

"No hard feelings," Adam answered as he accepted the proffered hand, and then the hug that he was pulled into.

Charlie was beaming when they drew back from each other.

"Let's go. I think the others are waiting."

Adam shut his locker.

"Yeah, I'm coming."

He'd seen a lot of empty lockers that held far too much meaning for him, but…empty lockers were there to be filled, after all.

In the process of filling the empty lockers in his life, he'd been hurt a lot, but in the end, the pain also made up the contents of those filled lockers. Without the pain, he'd be a lesser person than what he was now; without the pain, those lockers would be that little bit less full.

The empty lockers had led him to the Ducks, after all. And right then, in one of those sudden bursts of adolescent conviction, he was sure that as long as he stayed with the Ducks, he would never see another empty locker.

End


End file.
